This is part 7 of my 2020 lockdown crochet diary, including a roundup of all the free patterns I used in my window display. If you want to catch up on earlier posts, here are part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6. A summary list of the patterns and tutorials used is included at the bottom of each post.

Days 61 – 64: Kashmiri goat. But I have a justification! There is a wild population of Kashmiri goats that live on the Great Orme, just outside the Welsh town of Llandudno. They venture into the town for shelter during very bad weather, but since lockdown started they got a lot more bold and sampled tasty snacks from people’s gardens!

I’m delighted by the idea of these wild (and yarn-producing creatures) trotting through the streets. Found this cute goat appliqué pattern and tutorial from Kerri’s Crochet.

Used two strands of eyelash yarn for the body – a black, grey & white, and a gold. It turned into a bit of a nightmare when the two balls of yarn decided to unravel and do their own freeform macrame. It them took me about 8 hours to get it back to a useable state. After a lot of swearing, and getting it wrong (my fault, not the pattern or the tutorial) and redoing and generally fighting the yarn all the way, I’m pretty happy with the final result. Tried sewing him on straight, but he came out kicking up his heels! I don’t mind that.

The goat’s eyes are doll buttons (from malyns-crafts on ebay). I had to move the sunflower a bit to make room, but I wanted to move it anyway.

Day 65: Kept it simple with a quick and easy cornflower from No Day Without Yarn. Just the thing to bring a bit of early summer countryside to the collage!

Day 66 – 67: Made a crescent moon and stars in glow-in-the-dark yarn as part of a birthday card. Handy quick appliqué moon pattern by Catty Crochet. (This did not go on the window display.)

Stars are made by doing 5 picot stitches into a magic ring. To make a picot stitch, chain 3, slip stitch into the 1st chain, slip stitch into the ring.

By this time I was starting to seriously lose track of the days!

Days 68 – 73: Missed a few days because the temperature went up, and my ME symptoms flared up with it. So, I thought I’d do 5 quick and easy crochet “wins” to catch up a bit.

Ventured back into using eyelash yarn for this quick and easy fuzzy caterpillar by Tamara Adams on Ravelry. Used plain black DK yarn and gold eyelash yarn together to give the effect of a black body with gold hairs sticking out of it, and used some beads for eyes.

Tried this lively chart pattern for a deer by Chisako. Gave mine a long tusk-like canine and horn-shaped antlers to make into a muntjac. Originally from China, they were brought to Britain in the early 20th century, and now live wild in the countryside.

My eyesight was giving me trouble I thought I’d test it by freestyling a castle (since that’s now the government approved method) to go in the background. It came out a bit like a prison, and wasn’t really suitable without a lot more work so I left it.

Also tried out this pattern for a wild calla lily from Meli Bondre knitwear. Go look, she has a ton of amazing free flower patterns! Wanted to turn it into a UK wildflower, the Arum Maculatum. Then I realised I’d made it in the wrong colour for that, it was way too big, and it would need a lot of adaptation, so I moved on.

Missed walking in the bluebell woods this year, so I thought I’d put some in the crochet garden. Used this pattern from Coastal Crochet.

Found these colourful mini mandala patterns by Renata Saj of SunshineNL. The purple ones looked just like alliums to me! However, I am sticking to free patterns for this exercise, so I went in search of something similar, and found these mandalas by Barbara Smith (Made in K-town). Made the first 3 rounds, and then added another round of slip stitches and picot stitches. Then, being an eternal tinkerer, I made a couple more playing around with different stitches.

This fir tree pattern from Pattern Paradise reminds of the huge, swoopy, droopy trees you see in the gardens of country estates. I didn’t stuff it or make a base as I didn’t want it to weigh the lace curtain down too much.

So that got me up to five hits and two misses.

Day 74: I had to do some serious rearranging to get my new items on the collage.

Join me again for the next blog post, the last few days of lockdown 1 2020.

Pattern summary list:

• Goat appliqué pattern and tutorial from Kerri’s Crochet.
• Crescent moon appliqué pattern by Catty Crochet.
• Stars: 5 picot stitches into a magic ring. To make a picot stitch, chain 3, slip stitch into the 1st chain, slip stitch into the ring.
• Cornflower appliqué pattern from No Day Without Yarn.
• Fuzzy caterpillar pattern by Tamara Adams.
• Deer chart pattern for a deer by Chisako.
• Arum lily pattern from Meli Bondre knitwear.
• Bluebell pattern from Coastal Crochet.
• Alliums made from mandala pattern by Barbara Smith (Made in K-town).
• Fir tree pattern from Pattern Paradise.